Transit riders, drivers frustrated by LRT replacement bus service

OC Transpo is adding a handful of buses to bolster Thursday's R1 bus service, but people who rely on transit say it's a poor replacement for the light rail transportation they were promised.

The full length of the Confederation Line was shuttered Monday after regular maintenance uncovered an issue with a bearing. There is still no indication of when trains will be cleared to resume service.

In the meantime, the City of Ottawa's goal has been an R1 bus every five minutes during rush hour.

First, that meant 28 buses.

Two days later the count was up to 32, and as of Thursday morning commuters could expect to have 36 buses driving the route.

The city didn't refer to that boost as an attempt to improve on its five-minute goal, but rather as an effort to "increase reliability."

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Crowds at transit hubs surged earlier this week, with riders finding their commutes dragged out by anywhere from 15 minutes to a full hour.

"It is ridiculous that we have this horrible situation," said Kathleen Naluzny, who travels from Stittsville to work downtown. "It was a fiasco."

Naluzny said she waited an extra 30 minutes but, in her view, the greatest failure was a lack of proper planning for crowd management.

"Come off it," she said. "You're sending regular-sized buses downtown at 8 o'clock in the morning?"

About two-thirds of the replacement buses on the roads at that time were higher capacity vehicles, but Naluzny said none of three consecutive buses she spotted were articulated — and only the last bus had space for her to step on board.

Train capacity cannot be replicated

Renée Amilcar, general manager of transit services with the city, said OC Transpo is working to reduce commute times and ease crowding at stations.

"We can work with the maintenance employees to have more availability of the buses," she told CBC. "And we will play with the availability as well on the local routes."

Adding buses to the R1 service means some other areas of the city will not be as well serviced, Amilcar said. The result, she explained, could be that certain buses elsewhere will run every eight minutes instead of every five minutes.

On Tuesday, 118 local trips were cancelled to support R1 service. During Wednesday morning rush hour, another 65 trips were pulled.

While those concessions can get more vehicles on the replacement route, the city recognizes a bus can never have the capacity to fully replace train service. Depending on its size, an OC Transpo bus fits anywhere between 85 and 110 passengers, while a two-car Alstom train can carry up to 600.

"That is the reality we're grappling with," said Barrhaven East Coun. Wilson Lo, who worked as a bus driver for seven years.

"It will be frustrating … Not only will your journey along the rail [line] take longer, but then you might also face cancelled buses when you get to your transfer hub to get home."

Drivers working overtime

There's also the human factor, as OC Transpo continues to grapple with a driver shortage.

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Drivers are clocking overtime at a time of year when they would usually be booking time off.

"They are scrambling to get R1 service out to the public," said Clint Crabtree, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, who is bracing drivers for a shutdown that may last weeks.

"The reliability of this train hasn't been there since Day 1, and my members are feeling it."

Crabtree said drivers are "picking up the slack" and putting themselves at risk of further fatigue, while also adjusting to new and unfamiliar routes.

Losing the Transitway and dedicated bus routes means navigating challenging detours through heavy traffic areas, a situation that Amilcar said makes ensuring timely service more difficult.

Some areas of the bus route simply cannot run parallel to the train, inevitably leading to a longer route and frustrated passengers.

"It affects morale big time, and you can't blame the public," Crabtree said. "We want to instill confidence in the public and get a proper train running for them and it's just not happening."